Member

This is all just conjecture and opinion, mind you, based on Microsoft's corporate personality. Microsoft has an disturbing history of pursuing complete domination and control in whatever market they enter and have been involved in a number of high-profile anti-trust proceedings including in 2002 when they illegally tried to push Netscape out of the browser market (very pertinent to the current story).

As many users of browsers other than Internet Explorer have found, Microsoft has also arranged it such that many web sites offer content only accessible or only easily accessible if you're using IE, or worse, only if you're using IE from a Windows platform (Mac users: try getting Yahoo video news or even Yahoo games to play reliably in Safari or even Firefox).

Furthermore, as even a couple of their own executives have admitted, Microsoft seems to generate code bloated software plagued by security problems, some devastatingly serious. Not the kind of philosophy I'd want in charge of the second-largest search engine and a vast source of content for milliions of internet users.

Also, since many access Yahoo.com for news, I'm uneasy with a de facto corporate monopoly controlling the source that presents us with the news we read. Did you know that under the Bush administration, more has been done to increase regional news source monopolies and reduce the various sources from which people obtain information than any other in the information era, particularly where the FCC in concerned? As a result, many people are quite wary of corporate media consolidation.

In a similar vein, how about all those ads on Yahoo and Yahoo-linked sites? Want them all to be about Microsoft products? Or products that preferentially or only run on Windows. America has always been about choice and this scenario can only lead to Microsoft's consolidation of monopoly power.

My 2¢? Microsoft is a software company (OK, they do make a decent game console). In fact, it's the largest, most powerful software company in the world. Let it be that, and let the internet be the internet. I get cramps when I read about combining the two.

New Member

Gotcha! Now I know where you are coming from. My confusion was because I'm no big fan of Yahoo(!) so I was like, "who cares?" This is the Web 2.0 way of buying all those subscribers. Microsoft is going to gobble up one more thing and destroy it. The only one I can remember lately that they haven't yet completely destroyed is Bungie (though while their gaming division is finally starting to make them money they are still quite in the hole and now losing to the Wii). Besides, you even said that things like Yahoo Games and Yahoo video news already don't work very well on Macs, so who needs 'em?

As far as new monopolies, MSNBC has been a very scary thought to me for a long time (formed during the Clinton administration). And big networks have been buying/controlling small networks, big newspapers have been buying small newspapers, etc., for a long time.

I definitely see what you mean but I don't go so far as to consider it a problem for me or the internet. Microsoft should definitely focus on one thing and do it well (Office) rather than doing a bunch of things poorly which is the way it is now.

Member

I agree with your comments, and it's not as though anyone will wilt if Yahoo gets "destroyed." My concern is really one of consolidation of power and control of information flow. These are scary things, as you referenced with MSNBC, particularly in a culture that is less-than-critical about the information it is fed.

I didn't mean to Bush bash (I'll leave that to another forum). I was just trying to refer to current times. You could substitute "these days" for "under the Bush administration."